Note: Child death. The header art I have chosen is of the flight into Egypt, instead of the alternatives. The grief of lost children is still, unfortunately, a reality today.
I have put words I couldn't figure out in brackets, if anyone has translation suggestions.
Good Christian children, this day is called in Holy Church “Innocent’s
Day,” that is in English, “Childermas Day,” for children that were slain for
Christ’s love are called Innocents, that is, without offense. For they were not noisome to God by pride,
for God is ever offended with pride and against proud men; they did no wrong to
their neighbors and had no concept of sin.
Wherefor, I may well say that they lived cleanly without shame, they did
nothing blameworthy, but were baptized in their blood at home.
These Innocents that Holy Church readeth and singeth of
lived here without shame, for they were all within two years of age, wherefore
they were not ashamed of their own transgressions. For while a child is within the state of
innocence, he is not ashamed of his transgressions, for he is not befouled with
filth of sin, except for that of Adam and Eve.
They fared in a similar state, for they were in paradise in the state of
innocence: they were naked but they were not ashamed of their transgression,
for they were without sin. But as soon
as they had sinned, they saw their transgression and were ashamed thereof and
hid it with leaves of a fig tree. Thus,
when sin beginneth for to take root in a child, then innocence goeth away. For then he beginneth to know the good from
the evil, and when he leaveth the good and taketh the evil, then he sinneth,
and in that he is no innocent, in that he grieveth his God. But
these children lived not so long as to know good by the evil, but were slain
within the degree of innocence.
Wherefore they lived here without shame.
They died also without blame. For Herod, king of Jews, made to slay them
without guilt. For when the kings came
to Herod and asked where the king of Jews was born, for they were come to
worship him from out of the east, then was Herod all astonished of their words
and asked his clerks where he should be born.
Then said they: “In the city of Bethlehem.” Then told Herod the kings so, and bade them
go thither and do him worship and come again by him and tell him all their
doing, that he might go and worship him also.
But when the kings had done their offering to Christ, they went home
another way, for an angel in their sleep bade them go another way home, and so
they did. Then was Herod wonderfully
wroth and intended to have slain Christ.
But when he had made him ready, at that same time the
emperor of Rome sent to him by letter for to come to him in all the haste that
he might, for two of his own sons had approached him to be emperor of the treasury. So at that time he left the slaying of Christ
and went to Rome and had the better of his sons, and so came home with more
worship than he had before. Wherefore he
thought to slay Christ, lest when he had come to man’s state, he would have put
him out of his kingdom. Then sent he men
anon and bade them slay all the children that were in Bethlehem and in all the
country round about that were two years old or within two, and a child that was
born that same day, and so it was done.
For he was afraid that Christ, who had made a star bring the kings so
far, could have turned himself into diverse ages and made himself older or
younger by his own will while Herod was going and coming to Rome. Therefore he made to slay all the children
that were within two years old. And for vengeance
should fall upon himself in part, therefore, a child of his own was slain
amongst the others. But then came an
angel to Joseph and bade him take the child and his mother and flee to the land
of Egypt and be there until he warned him, and so he did. Thus the Innocents were slain without blame.
They were also [baptized/redeemed] in the same, that is, in
their own blood, in no font but in the shedding of their blood. Wherefore the [schul] understood that [folth]
cometh in three waves: in water, as we Christian men are baptized in the font
at the church; in shedding of blood, as these children and many thousands of
other martyrs that shed their blood for Christ’s love, the third [folthe] is in
faith, in the which faith all patriarchs and prophets and all other holy
fathers that were before Christ’s incarnation, that lived in Christ’s coming,
they were redeemed in the [folth] of faith.
Thus may you see how much cruelty this man had in his heart, to slay so
many thousands of guiltless children because of the envy that he had for
Christ, that he felt no guilt. Because
he made many a mother childless, weeping for their deaths, God wrought that he
should slay his own children also. And
after, as he pared an apple, with that same knife he struck himself. Thus he that lusted for the children’s guiltless
blood, ad the last he shed his own heart’s blood. For he that is without mercy, vengeance
falleth on himself. And he that liveth
to do mercy, God will show him mercy in turn.
And that I may affirm by example that I find in the life of
Saint Sylvester. There I find that
Constantine the emperor was leperous, and by the counsel of his healers he made
to gather three thousand children to be slain, that all their blood should be put
into a vessel, that the emperor should bathe therein while the blood was yet
hot. And when these children were
gathered in a place, this emperor came riding thither in a chair. But when he came nigh, the mothers of these
children wept against him, crying and weeping and so on, making a doleful
noise. Then asked the emperor what women
they were. They said others that they
were the mothers of the children that should be killed, and they hade that
noise for sorrow of their children. Then
said the emperor: “It would be a cruel deed of us to make so many bodies slain
for to heal my body, as I am but one man.
And many of these children may be thereafter full worthy men and stand
our empire in good stead. Nay,” quoth
he, “I will not so. Let them go home whole
and sound. And I will take the penance
that is ordained for me,” and made to give the mothers great gifts, and so bade
them go home with mirth and gladness that had come thither with sorrow and
weeping. Then the night after, as the
emperor lay in his bed sleeping, Peter and Paul came to him and said: for that
great compassion that he had on the children and their mothers, God sent to him
word that he should have compassion on him, and bade him send after Saint Sylvester
and follow him, and then he should be whole, and so he did. Then when he went there, anon in the water the
leprosy fell away from him, and he was as clean of hide and skin as any child that
he delivered before.
Thus we may see how that he that will do mercy, shall have
mercy. And he that loveth to do
vengeance, vengeance shall fall on himself.
So did Herod: he did vengeance and vengeance fell on him. And because the other man did mercy, he had
mercy and grace both.
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